Southern Nevada’s homebuilding industry is making “positive advances” this year despite an array of obstacles, a new report says.
Local builders sold 633 new homes last month, bringing the year’s total to 2,993, up 10.7 percent from the same period in 2014, according to Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research.
The median closing price in June was $303,047, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier. Builders also pulled 841 new-home permits last month, putting the year’s tally at 4,130, up 22.5 percent from the same period in 2014.
Last month’s permit total was the highest monthly tally since July 2008.
If this year’s sales pace continues, three builders could close 1,000 sales in 2015, the report said.
“That would be three more than last year!” Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith wrote.
According to Smith, Lennar Corp. has sold 667 homes this year, KB Home has sold 503 and D.R. Horton has sold 442.
The broader sales growth is “awfully good” considering the high rates of underwater borrowers in the valley, he said. About 25 percent of local homeowners with mortgages remain underwater, meaning their mortgage debt outweighs their home value. That’s far below Las Vegas’ peak of 71 percent in the first quarter of 2012 but still highest among large metro areas, according to Zillow.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas’ economic recovery has been “ho-hum”; a “cloud of uncertainty” still lingers over many people; and the “almost daily occurrence of disturbing” events, primarily overseas, “can dampen any overexuberance,” Smith wrote.
Despite all that, he said, Las Vegas’ housing market “continues to make positive advances.”